Preparing for the International Craft Design Exhibition on Natural Dyes 2014

Reinterpreting the traditional technique of batik through the means of Digital Fabrication.

Dutch colonials originally brought the batik technique from Indonesia back to Holland and reinvented it with the industrialization of wax resist prints.

The same Dutch were the first to then introduce and diffuse synthetic dyes into the Indonesian islands, destabilizing a centuries long tradition of locally sourced natural dyes.

Now, as international designers educated within the Dutch design context, we were inspired by this dialogue and pro-actively created an innovative machine for digital fabrication, bringing the essence of the technique into a contemporary design context.

This allowed us to continue this dialogue of influences – bringing back the focus onto natural dyes.

On display is a tapestry that represents our entire process of wax resist printing and coloring with natural dyes.